Although not as pleasurable as another make up activity that I can think of, nevertheless make up fishing can be highly enjoyable, as I was pleased to find out today.
By make up fishing, I am referring making up for lousy fishing (ie., getting skunked) one day by catching a passel of fish the next.
On Wednesday, my office closed early for the holiday, so I took the opportunity to try out the Main and North Branches of the Hoosic from 2 to 4 PM.
It was overcast, 45 degrees, and water levels were a bit higher than I prefer.
I visited all the old familiar places, but, despite repeated casts, the fish declined my cordial invitation to a game of tug-o-war, and I didn't get a single strike the hole time.
Today, I gave it another go, but given all the rain we've had the last few days, I figured the rivers would be roaring, so I decided to set my sights on a smaller stream instead.
I fished a feeder brook of the North Branch from 11:45 AM to 1:30 PM.
Again, it was 45 degrees - - although this time, it started out overcast, then started sprinkling, then cleared up (and the sun popped through) but the wind picked up as the day progressed.
The fishing was considerably better today than on Wednesday - - so that I was able to beach two brookies (one 6" and one 7") as well as nine browns (three 9", five 10" and one 12").
As a bonus, my triple bag and rubber band approach to lining my leaky boots get my feet relatively dry.
The only down side was that, I wrenched my back earlier in the weak, and aggravated it today when I started to slip off a rock while wading and had to catch myself.
When I got home, I managed to pick/forage a few home-grown ingredients (some mummified cherry tomatoes, a chopped up crab apple, mesclun mix and dandelion greens) to round out the salad that went with the leftover turnkey-and-vegetable stir fry (with buffalo chicken sauce) that I cooked for an early supper over my fire pit, and washed down with a small bottle of homemade amber (dandelion/peach/pear/pomegranate/strawberry) wine.
I'm really anxious to start ice fishing soon (and not above using my current back problem as an excuse to enlist my kids as unpaid labor to tote my gear, chop my holes, etc.), but in the meantime a day out on the water like today can considerably soften the blow while I'm waiting.
